At today’s Men’s Bible Study we discussed what it means to be a man, and how activities like baseball help develop valuable character qualities in our children. You can click here to listen. The audio will remain online for the next 30 days. I’ve attached my teaching notes below from today’s session.

1. Welcome & Prayer

2. Ministry Opportunities at Crossview

3. What is masculinity? What exactly does it even mean to be “a man”?

• John Piper: “At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships” (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, p. 35).
• Our identity is closely connected to our roles. How does one define a pastor without explaining what a pastor does? Likewise, how does one define a man without looking at the roles a man has been assigned by God? Even Genesis 1-3 emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of a man versus a woman in the home and broader society.

4. Teaching Biblical Masculinity through Sports (pp. 90-96)

• Understanding Authority (Rom. 13:7)
• Self-Sacrifice (Mk. 10:45)
• Obedience to Authority (1 Pet. 2:13)
• Unfairness (Jer. 12:1)
• Failure (Ps. 102:4)
• Humility (Phil. 2:3)
• Resilience (Phil 3:13)
• Grace, Mercy, and Honor – Sportsmanship (Jude 3)
• Gratitude (Col. 3:15)
• Leadership and Encouragement (Heb. 10:25)
• The Absence of Fathers (Ps. 68:5-6)

5. Three Forms of Training (1 Thess. 5:14)

• Admonish the idle
• Encourage the fainthearted
• Help the weak
• Be patient with all

6. Discussion Questions

• If someone is not into baseball, what other activities could instill the same virtues and character qualities mentioned on pp. 90-96?
• What do you think of the statement that “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” Have you ever experienced this personally?
• What if it’s “too late”? Is it possible to start these parenting principles if our kids are already teenagers or even grown adults? What might look different?
• What stood out to you in the reading this month?

7. Prayer

8. Next Meeting. Saturday, Feb. 20, at 9am. Please read A Guide to Manhood, pp. 102-109. Highlight/write out two key statements that stood out to you. Then after that we will be returning to J.I. Packer’s Knowing God.

Cooking takes time. I suppose you could grab a frozen dinner, heat it in the microwave for four minutes, then sit down and eat. But the quality, nutritional value, and taste of the product will show. The same is true of preaching.

Like cooking, sermon prep and “preacher prep” take time. It takes a LOT of time to shape and equip a man as an expositor of God’s word. For example, the seminary where I attended has an MDiv program of 98 units (representing 3-4 years and thousands of hours). It could be argued every single one of those hours was spent in some way preparing men to become expositors. And having received our degree, many of us still felt like we were just getting started!

So it is with great hesitation I write a post “How to Quickly Develop Preachers.” In one sense, this is an impossibility. But what would you do if you had only a limited time, say, just over a month, to develop the next preacher in your church?

For one friend, this is no hypothetical. He recently said he has only been given five weeks to train some preachers, and then his access and involvement to this flock will be largely cut off. As you might have guessed, he is in an international context. He recently asked a few friends, “Do any of you have short homiletics seminars / bootcamps / courses / resources to share that might be of help as I train some of these men?”

Here was my reply:

What an excellent, practical question. I am praying the Lord will give you wisdom and efficiency with what little time you have.

I think the two most important things you need to discuss are hermeneutics and homiletics. These two provide the building blocks for everything else in sound exegetical teaching and preaching.  

Hermeneutics (the rules of biblical interpretation). R.C. Sproul’s little 125 page book Knowing Scripture is gold. In chapter 4, he shares ten rules for Bible interpretation: Interpret like any book. Read existentially. Interpret the historical by the didactic. Interpret the implicit by the explicit. Determine the meaning of words. Parallelism. Proverb and law. The spirit vs. the letter of the law. Be careful with parables and predictive prophecy. This short book distills much of what I grew up learning as a Christian and had reinforced in seminary. His last chapter on practical tools for Bible Study will also help a Bible student or preacher build their own personal library.

Homiletics (the art and science of preaching).  David Murray’s book How Sermons Work is short, comprehensive, and full of practical examples. He covers all the bases including preparation, selecting a text, interrogation (exegesis), variety in preaching, sermon introductions, organizing the material, developing applications, and the actual preaching event. All in 150 pages!  

Studying these two topics of hermeneutics and homiletics, while also listening and evaluating sample sermons, and then practicing preaching short sermons are probably the best ways to learn.

If necessary, these principles could be taught in a few weeks, though the skills will take a lifetime to master. And still, we will exclaim with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?”

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Our Adult Sunday School (aka Life Group) recently switched back to using a weekly curriculum. There are both risks and advantages to using curriculum, but overall, I think it’s a great way to go for most lay teachers in a local church. It’s also an excellent way to develop new teachers, sprinkling them into the teaching rotation. If your church uses curriculum, I recommend you follow these ten tips.

1. Remember that curriculum is just a guide. Don’t feel obligated to cover everything. In fact, don’t even try to cover everything. If you do, you’ll probably jam in way too much information. These pre-made lesson plans for kids and adults are written with the expectation that you will tailor the teaching to your class needs and not try to fit everything in. Don’t stick religiously to the teaching manuscript. But the material should make your preparation more efficient and ensure you are exposing your members to all the major doctrines and sections of Scripture over the course of several years. Curriculum also provides good ideas for discussion questions and application. When in doubt on an interpretive issue, always cross-check the curriculum with a good Study Bible or commentary.
2. Start Early. Early in the week, read the entire lesson plan or chapter in the book. As you are going along, underline or highlight major ideas. Feel free to jot notes in the margin as well.
3. Read the Word. If you only study the lesson plan, you’ll miss out on the delightful and life-changing process of personal Bible Study. When it comes time to teach, you will simply be filtering what someone else learned. Having read through your lesson plan, spend time in the biblical text and make sure the passages are being interpreted properly and taken in context. In other words, be a Berean, examining the scriptures for yourself.
4. Find the Main Point. What is the main point of the lesson and the Bible passage that you plan to drive home? You should arrive at this based on the authorial intent of the passage, but also the specific angle and theme you have chosen as a teacher. It would also be good to have some kind of outline, even if it’s just breaking down the text into smaller portions and studying a few verses at a time, then pausing for discussion and application. You don’t need “three points and a poem” in the traditional homiletical sense, but you do need some kind of main point and structure. If you have no outline or structure whatsoever, your thoughts will be scattered, repetitive, and confusing.
5. Anticipate questions. What questions do you have as you study the text? More than likely, your students will have some of those very same questions. Be mindful of their developmental age and level of biblical literacy. Questions are one of the best ways to engage your audience and tickle their curiosity, which will aid in learning, retention, discernment, and application. Isaac Newton said, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” We want our learners to feel like they are playing on the seashore, on the edge of a vast ocean of truth!
6. Add a personal touch. Your lesson will be far more interesting when you sprinkle in some of your own personal stories and applications. Also, think about other biblical cross-references that come to mind that go beyond the curriculum.
7. Don’t do all the talking. When teaching, try to lecture for no more than 5-7 minutes straight, then ask a question. Intersperse your teaching with a balance of observation, interpretation, and application questions. If you’re the only one talking, you’re missing the point of small groups, which is to facilitate learning through discussion and discovery. Remember, a Sunday School lesson is NOT a sermon.
8. Beware of rabbit trails. Discussion is important because it keeps people involved and helps them to digest the Word. But it can quickly digress into soap box issues and never ending rabbit trails. As teacher and facilitator, your job is to keep the discussion moving, to stay positive, involve a wide mix of people, and lasso the group back in if they get too far off track. If someone gives a wrong answer, you can respond, “That’s an interesting thought, but it seems to say something different here in verse five…” or whatever.
9. Review often. Always review last week’s study at the beginning of your new lesson, and pause a couple times during your lesson to recap what you’ve covered so far. Teaching involves a lot of repetition to help it sink in. You may have spent hours in the text, but for many of your students, this is brand new, unfamiliar material. They need you to repeat it.
10. Lastly, remember the gospel. Make much of Christ, and him crucified. Doctrine and historical background that is disconnected from the gospel is merely head knowledge that could puff up your listeners. Moral commands disconnected from the gospel become sheer legalism. It is always possible that someone present is not a Christian, but even if everyone in the room is saved, it’s good for us to remember our identity in Christ and the centrality of the cross and empty tomb.

Do you enjoy teaching from a lesson plan? What tips would you add to this list?